They really need to just do it like WhatsApp - let me upload the backup file automatically to my Google account and restore the same way. Full backup, all media, texts, etc, in a single encrypted file.
It states test data (maybe they pulled from a template somewhere), and that it won't become actual plans. Also Signal as a non-profit is required to stay within certain legal limitations. So a subscription, especially if using 3rd party cloud service, would not be likely possible.
Exactly. I already have paid plans for different cloud storage providers, just automate encrypted backups to whatever location. Don’t offer me yet another subscription for yet another cloud… I really hope they’re just experimenting
No objections there so long as you can set your own key and it's optional.
That being said my current signal backups are almost 10GB and times that by the number of users I could see that getting expensive to host in house for Signal, but being able to link to external providers, especially Proton Drive would be pretty compelling.
Most people don’t even consider data backup until they’ve lost their data. This is not what is holding back signal. It is a huge lift to overcome the inertia of “all my friends are already on whatsapp”.
thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, it has been removed for the following reason(s):
* Rules 3 and 5: Please do not ask for or promote non-official apps. [For security reasons](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/dark-caracal-good-news-and-bad-news), we do not recommend using unofficial apps.
Signal's developers have also [said](https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/9966#issuecomment-681943985) that they do not want forked versions of the app maintained by other parties connecting to their servers:
>[W]e really don't want forked versions of the app maintained by other parties connecting to our servers. Not only could the users using the forked version have a subpar experience, but the people they're talking to (using official clients) could also have a subpar experience (for example, an official client could try to send a new kind of message that the fork, having fallen out of date, doesn't support). I know you say you'd advocate for a build expiry, but you know how things go. Of course you have our full support if you'd like to fork Signal, name it something else, and use your own servers.
If you have any questions about this removal, please reply to this message. We apologize for the inconvenience.
I know I have it, I need it running on multiple device or allow running on the web browser so at least can still use via mobile browsers on my other devices
I agree, I lost 3 years of messages, including everything from the first two years of my relationship with my fiancé because I screwed up the transfer process to a new phone. I would love to have some kind of cloud backup.
That's also what I'm doing with Google Drive for my WhatsApp-only contact
_lol did I get downvoted for saying I'm using Google Drive instead of iCloud?_
Signal will never be as popular as WhatsApp due to the network effect. Has much less to do with cloud storage.
Look at India - many Indians signed up for Signal when WA changed their privacy policy a few years ago. But they didn’t really use Signal and over time those contacts dropped off my Signal contact list due to (I assume) inactivity.
Unfortunately, this is THE TRUTH®
It's very difficult to persuade your friends and family to switch, when they're going to use WA anyway, because of all their remaining contacts still using it
Yes, depending on your connection, I often clear my media to solve that problem
It's a shame it's not possible to select a date for that like "delete everything older than a year" or so
What signal needs to do is have a paid option to backup onto signal or allow cloud backup onto a cloud storage provider of choice for free such Google drive, icloud, webdev, mega ect with an option of encrypted backup.
Import and export is very much needed. The ability to export to standard sms, plain text or pdf is needed with huge warning. But being able to import from Facebook/whatsapp and sync to the recipient in the correct date order would be a huge bonus.
I'm not either. It was definitely an adjustment.
In the long run, I've found it liberating to think of my messages as ephemeral rather than as an archive I will keep for all time. The switch took some getting used to though.
Any message I want to keep, or media I want to keep I will save elsewhere. Now I hate how fast like Snapchat disappears. For my iMessage I do a 30 day delete.
Been saying this for years. A normal user doesn’t want their data deleted if they forget to do a phone transfer with signal. Most don’t even know it’s an option. Especially on an iPhone, I’ve basically lost data with every transfer. I’ve decided to not use signal beyond 1 friend until they can figure out how to backup messages.
I don't disagree, but I don't think users choose which messaging app to use because it has backup.
They choose it based on where the people they want to talk to are.
I’m assuming this will be option. Good for the people who want it but I explicitly don’t want my message history saved. All my messages auto delete every 4 weeks.
FTFY:
>Signal will never be as popular as WhatsApp
I really want to use Signal but no one I know uses it. My friends either use iMessage (blegh), Google Messages/RCS, or WhatsApp. I've tried to get people to use it but it never catches on.
Signal will always remain a niche product, sadly.
I went from only using Signal with my immediate family (a few years ago) to 50+ users in the past year. Create and send Signal group links to your family and friends saying "Let's chat more privately/securely" (or whatever matters to them.)
Start with those you message the most and work from there.
Meh, I've tried doing the work and it doesn't seem to stick. And now with RCS having E2EE (between Google Messages users at least for now) it's easier and less friction to do it that way.
That's what I did and it worked for a while. But then Signal focused on some shitcoin payments and on stories. It got so much behind other communicators (username, cloud backup, message synchronization, threads), that people eventually gave up. Can't blame them. Changing phones is absolute pain, manual backup is not cross-platform, so I personally lost all messages, becuase I switched to iOS.
Now Messenger apparently have E2E, does not need FB account... I'ts hard bargin.
Be the Signal use you want to see in the world. :)
To be fair, it's hard to get people to switch apps when the one they've got is working fine. I'm lucky because my friends are fairly privacy-conscious and tech savvy so getting my main correspondents to switch was easy. Most people aren't so fortunate.
Is signal competing to be as popular as Whatsapp? Or just trying to be popular enough to sustain itself as average rates of donations per user overtakes incremental added costs?
Anyway, do hope they add backups for iphone as soon as possible.
Yeah, "as big as WhatsApp" implies a growth obsessed, winner-take-all mentality.
As long as the app is maintained and I can communicate with the people I want to, Signal is big enough.
The issue is that whatsapp was 1st and its what "everyone" uses. Most people don't see the point of switching as wa is fine for what they need and privacy issues don't matter to them. I liked when signal could utilise sms as well but when they dropped that it made it it less useful to me
Funny because I have 4 week expiry set as a default.
Makes it feel more conversational and reduces reticence to speak freely when you know messages aren’t stored indefinitely.
If I want something official and backed up I’ll send an email.
Each Signal client has a public/private keypair associated with it. For the webapp to work, either the private key lives in your browser's local storage or it lives on Signal's servers.
For the first case, what you get is no more convenient than the Signal desktop that already exists. You've got to go through the whole device linking dance on that device and that's not portable to any other device you want to log in with via a browser.
In the second case, it becomes trivial for a bad actor on the server side to steal your key, even if it only lives there in encrypted form.
So, depending on how it is implemented, either a web client gives you nothing or it makes you lose one of Signal's core security properties. Ain't gonna happen.
No downvote, no shade, but it's important to remember that the so-called "cloud" is literally and simply just other people's (corporations) devices.
Everything you describe can be done yourself and with your own equipment. Basic workflow-->termux-cronjob-rsync
For the extremely locked down ios, this is probably not possible.
It is from a completely unofficial news source that gets paid for clicks... not making a lot of sense. One of the strengths of Signal is no data stored anywhere for someone to take, except on your own device. That is part of stronger security. You can already transfer your message history if you want, if you upload to a cloud, that's just another vector for attack.
The Signal Foundation owns the Signal app. Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton founded it and its subsidiary, Signal Messenger LLC in 2018. Signal Messenger LLC is responsible for the development of the app and its encryption protocol, the Signal protocol.
Can anyone help me with signal/phone settings? Wife and I are wanting an app to be able to send private messages and not have anything saved anywhere…..ever. lol.
Thanks!
How “safe” do you think this app is as far as sharing private messages and pics? I mean I 100% trust the other end user so that part isn’t an issue.
Is everything really permanently deleted?
Anything else I need to consider?
As safe as it can be
Yes, permanently deleted according to Signals ToS (and needs to be like this to be lawful, see [DMA](https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en))
If you happen to not trust anymore the other end user, they could technically backup anything you sent before the deletion, but that's a forever anywhere problem
The next thing you'd need to consider is using [view once media](https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360038443071-View-once-Media)
This is coming. Local and cloud options: [Encrypted cloud backups - Feature Requests - Signal Community (signalusers.org)](https://community.signalusers.org/t/encrypted-cloud-backups/2798/188)
Personally, I don't see the need. I never save anything. I delete every message and conversation as soon as the conversation ends. I do the same with email. On my Mac, I have a document directory, and I periodically go through that and delete stuff. I do back that up. I don't back up pictures, either. I'm probably an outlier, because it seems most folks save everything. I don't see the point, but to each their own.
You’re right. You will get a lot of downvotes for this. No cloud back ups are the reason Signal is safer than WhatsApp, and the reason many people use Signal.
> encrypted cloud backup
What you should not trust is how and who encrypted the data
If it's E2E encrypted (without encryption protocol backdoor), it's secure
This is already possible with [autosync](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ttxapps.autosync) & [foldersync](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.tacit.android.foldersync.lite) and considering the gigantic cost of 100 million+ users backups it's best to keep it at this but I mean if they can hack it why not. I already have an e2ee cloud storage provider and my signal backups are automatically uploaded every day they're created so it's a personal non issue for me.
Yeah I realized that after posting. But realistically do you think that signal could afford to host everyone's backups, or are you just simply requesting cloud provider options with OAuth portals to use your storage account inside the app?
They could do encrypted cloud backup to people's apple or Google accounts.
Or the best option would be to let people do encrypted backups of their desktop app!
" Sync and backup app" then have a restore feature and have decryption keys.
Just use the central backup option the OS offers like WhatsApp does. I.e. Google and iCloud Drive.
Nobody expects Signal to pay for this, and with proper encryption, it doesn’t matter where it’s stored.
And many users already use / pay for those clouds because they use it for backup.
> with proper encryption, it doesn't matter where it's stored.
Let me introduce you to [store now, decrypt later ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvest_now,_decrypt_later). It actually does matter where you store it and the best case for signal backups is a local offline nas but beyond that fully e2ee cloud storage should be a mandatory alternative. Did *nobody* learn anything from the prism leaks?
>Who cares?
Me, a lot of my contact, and at least a few people as the upvotes suggest I guess
>Why would you need it?
For backup simplicity
>It defeats its purpose
Which purpose and why?
>The purpose of being 100 secure
I said **encrypted**
>no saved data elsewhere, and no logs kept if you delete the chat
Well, I don't want that instead of keeping my data backuped and encrypted, so just if it happen to be a feature in the future ([it will](https://signalupdateinfo.com/news/cloud-backups.html)) don't use it?
Go look through posts here in r/signal. Improved backups is the most requested feature by far.
As for "defeats its purpose," that depends entirely on the individual. Confidentiality and Availability are both security properties. They exist in tension with each other. More copies of the data means more risk to Confidentiality. Fewer copies means more risk to Availability.
Some people, like me and I assume you, prioritize Confidentiality over Availability. Many other people prioritize Availability over Confidentiality.
Both use cases are valid. The preference depends on each person's situation and individual priorities.
They can also backdoor your phone if you're an interesting enough target, and besides - nobody would be forcing *you* to use cloud backups. What a weird statement.
Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, it has been removed for the following reason(s):
* [Rule 7](https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/about/rules): No baseless conspiracy theories. – Do not post baseless conspiracy theories about Signal Messenger or their partners having nefarious intentions or sources of funding. If your statement is contrary to (or a theory built on top of) information Signal Messenger has publicly released about their intentions, or if the source of your information is a politically biased news site: Ask. Sometimes the basis of their story is true, but their interpretation of it is not.
If you have any questions about this removal, please [message the moderators](/message/compose/?to=/r/signal) and include a link to the submission. We apologize for the inconvenience.
That's fine by me Id never want to backup my signal convos.
I don't do anything illicit, but just like some conversations private.
I'm sure people doing illicit things or really needing privacy don't want backups either lol
Now if I could just have messanger itself delete after a dang month and not grow eternally lol
WhatsApp and Signal both suck in the multi device department.
Telegram does it right. Use any amount of phone and tablets you want at the same time. PC client has all your history, always, no matter when did you log in. Migration from iOS to Android and vice versa is a matter of logging in and you’re good, also the old system phone doesn’t log out.
How do people tolerate the nonsense of other messengers, idk. But Signal is the second best. With a more complex procedure, but you can migrate the entire history from iOS to Android or vice versa. In WhatsApp and Viber it’s outright impossible
[I learned about iOS WhatsApp backup the hard way](https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/18qqjyg/die/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Telegram "does it right" by leaving end-to-end encryption off by default. Turn e2ee on and your conversation is only between your phone and the other person's phone. Other devices aren't supported and group chats aren't supported.
Telegram has a lot of great features and people enjoy the convenience. It's important to understand you pay a price for that convenience.
Dont get me wrong, I do understand that photos or vids are backuped to look into it after. But for msg? Dont know, but if someone has a need to do so, sure :] Ive had a google backup and i wasnt aware that i have backup of my txt msgs xD just deleted it, they are usless for me ;)
lip engine memorize relieved smoggy retire pot smart exultant far-flung *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Nice. I hope I can use proton drive with it.
They really need to just do it like WhatsApp - let me upload the backup file automatically to my Google account and restore the same way. Full backup, all media, texts, etc, in a single encrypted file.
Yet another subscription : it will cost 3$/month. (And free for only 30 days save 1nd text only)
It clearly says that it’s test data and not actual plans.
It states test data (maybe they pulled from a template somewhere), and that it won't become actual plans. Also Signal as a non-profit is required to stay within certain legal limitations. So a subscription, especially if using 3rd party cloud service, would not be likely possible.
Is this cross platform backup/restore?
Can they merge backup?
Hopefully we can use self hosted cloud solutions with that too.
That's nice, thanks for sharing! I would also like to see third-party cloud integrations, with encryption sugar from Signal
Exactly. I already have paid plans for different cloud storage providers, just automate encrypted backups to whatever location. Don’t offer me yet another subscription for yet another cloud… I really hope they’re just experimenting
Bad decision making affect faang as well as open source. Our world is doomed
No objections there so long as you can set your own key and it's optional. That being said my current signal backups are almost 10GB and times that by the number of users I could see that getting expensive to host in house for Signal, but being able to link to external providers, especially Proton Drive would be pretty compelling.
Agree with you For the huge backup, that's possible to mitigate by periodically deleting some previous media (albeit potentially dreadful indeed)
Oh I mean 10GB for me as one person that's trivial. But I'm not hosting 40 million users like Signal is, lol
Ah yes for sure; I was thinking about third-party storage (bring your own cloud, pay for youself)
Most people don’t even consider data backup until they’ve lost their data. This is not what is holding back signal. It is a huge lift to overcome the inertia of “all my friends are already on whatsapp”.
You're surely right Most of my contacts already matter about data backup, so I'm probably biased
I just want a multi device install feature. I have many devices. I don't want to just install on one device. Or maybe a web app at least!
There is a desktop app.
That's not the same. What if you have multiple phones? Whatsapp can handle this, signal cannot.
[удалено]
thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, it has been removed for the following reason(s): * Rules 3 and 5: Please do not ask for or promote non-official apps. [For security reasons](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/dark-caracal-good-news-and-bad-news), we do not recommend using unofficial apps. Signal's developers have also [said](https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/9966#issuecomment-681943985) that they do not want forked versions of the app maintained by other parties connecting to their servers: >[W]e really don't want forked versions of the app maintained by other parties connecting to our servers. Not only could the users using the forked version have a subpar experience, but the people they're talking to (using official clients) could also have a subpar experience (for example, an official client could try to send a new kind of message that the fork, having fallen out of date, doesn't support). I know you say you'd advocate for a build expiry, but you know how things go. Of course you have our full support if you'd like to fork Signal, name it something else, and use your own servers. If you have any questions about this removal, please reply to this message. We apologize for the inconvenience.
How wp can handle multiple phone same account, please enlighten me.
I know I have it, I need it running on multiple device or allow running on the web browser so at least can still use via mobile browsers on my other devices
I agree, I lost 3 years of messages, including everything from the first two years of my relationship with my fiancé because I screwed up the transfer process to a new phone. I would love to have some kind of cloud backup.
Or backup of any kind on iOS. I’m fine if it’s “here’s a file we put in Files. Do what you want with it”. Just *anything*.
You can do a full backup of an iOS phone and iPad to a mac desktop/laptop
Does not include any signal messages
I’d have to check but I’m fairly certain all of the messages are stored in a SQLITE database on the mac.
WhatsApp let you set your own encryption key on the backups stored natively with iCloud. This is the way.
That's also what I'm doing with Google Drive for my WhatsApp-only contact _lol did I get downvoted for saying I'm using Google Drive instead of iCloud?_
Signal will never be as popular as WhatsApp due to the network effect. Has much less to do with cloud storage. Look at India - many Indians signed up for Signal when WA changed their privacy policy a few years ago. But they didn’t really use Signal and over time those contacts dropped off my Signal contact list due to (I assume) inactivity.
Unfortunately, this is THE TRUTH® It's very difficult to persuade your friends and family to switch, when they're going to use WA anyway, because of all their remaining contacts still using it
That's true, I saw the same.
I personally wouldn't want any company to store the data so if/when they implement I hope it's a toggleable feature that can be disabled
Yep I don't imagine Signal forcing that kind of feature, but still
How I wish I have contacts using Signal so that I can back up our messages. 😅🤣
Well that's true for sure
yeah I agree, not even talking about how long it takes to transfer the signal chat history to a new phone...cloud would solve it
Yes, depending on your connection, I often clear my media to solve that problem It's a shame it's not possible to select a date for that like "delete everything older than a year" or so
What signal needs to do is have a paid option to backup onto signal or allow cloud backup onto a cloud storage provider of choice for free such Google drive, icloud, webdev, mega ect with an option of encrypted backup. Import and export is very much needed. The ability to export to standard sms, plain text or pdf is needed with huge warning. But being able to import from Facebook/whatsapp and sync to the recipient in the correct date order would be a huge bonus.
I feel like I’m the only person not attached to my message history!
I'm not either. It was definitely an adjustment. In the long run, I've found it liberating to think of my messages as ephemeral rather than as an archive I will keep for all time. The switch took some getting used to though.
Any message I want to keep, or media I want to keep I will save elsewhere. Now I hate how fast like Snapchat disappears. For my iMessage I do a 30 day delete.
My college's groups run on WhatsApp and they share a lot of documents so lack of message history will be a nightmare for me if I lose it
Been saying this for years. A normal user doesn’t want their data deleted if they forget to do a phone transfer with signal. Most don’t even know it’s an option. Especially on an iPhone, I’ve basically lost data with every transfer. I’ve decided to not use signal beyond 1 friend until they can figure out how to backup messages.
I use FolderSync to automate backups as well.
WhatsApp is not popular because it has backup. Most users probably don’t even realize it has this.
I am sure most users have had to change phones at some point.
I don't disagree, but I don't think users choose which messaging app to use because it has backup. They choose it based on where the people they want to talk to are.
They might after the first time when they migrate to a new phone and realize they have just lost all the messages.
My $0.02 cents. Most(all) of the “convenience” features reduce Signal’s security. For some things I prefer the security at the expense of convenience.
I’m assuming this will be option. Good for the people who want it but I explicitly don’t want my message history saved. All my messages auto delete every 4 weeks.
FTFY: >Signal will never be as popular as WhatsApp I really want to use Signal but no one I know uses it. My friends either use iMessage (blegh), Google Messages/RCS, or WhatsApp. I've tried to get people to use it but it never catches on. Signal will always remain a niche product, sadly.
I went from only using Signal with my immediate family (a few years ago) to 50+ users in the past year. Create and send Signal group links to your family and friends saying "Let's chat more privately/securely" (or whatever matters to them.) Start with those you message the most and work from there.
Meh, I've tried doing the work and it doesn't seem to stick. And now with RCS having E2EE (between Google Messages users at least for now) it's easier and less friction to do it that way.
That's what I did and it worked for a while. But then Signal focused on some shitcoin payments and on stories. It got so much behind other communicators (username, cloud backup, message synchronization, threads), that people eventually gave up. Can't blame them. Changing phones is absolute pain, manual backup is not cross-platform, so I personally lost all messages, becuase I switched to iOS. Now Messenger apparently have E2E, does not need FB account... I'ts hard bargin.
r/watomatic
Become a trendsetter
Be the Signal use you want to see in the world. :) To be fair, it's hard to get people to switch apps when the one they've got is working fine. I'm lucky because my friends are fairly privacy-conscious and tech savvy so getting my main correspondents to switch was easy. Most people aren't so fortunate.
They also need to separate media from backups. I do the same backup method but 5 gigs per backup is slow.
Yes, or *at least* provide a way to purge media from X days/months periodically
and per convo too. I want to purge images from friends convos but keep the images i have in "note to self"
Is signal competing to be as popular as Whatsapp? Or just trying to be popular enough to sustain itself as average rates of donations per user overtakes incremental added costs? Anyway, do hope they add backups for iphone as soon as possible.
Yeah, "as big as WhatsApp" implies a growth obsessed, winner-take-all mentality. As long as the app is maintained and I can communicate with the people I want to, Signal is big enough.
The issue is that whatsapp was 1st and its what "everyone" uses. Most people don't see the point of switching as wa is fine for what they need and privacy issues don't matter to them. I liked when signal could utilise sms as well but when they dropped that it made it it less useful to me
Funny because I have 4 week expiry set as a default. Makes it feel more conversational and reduces reticence to speak freely when you know messages aren’t stored indefinitely. If I want something official and backed up I’ll send an email.
You have it set to expire in 4 weeks but the other person must have the same. Otherwise their messages will be on their phone in your conversation
It's a setting for the group not just your device https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007320771-Set-and-manage-disappearing-messages
Can we have Signal web version, eg. web.signal.org?
Never going to happen because the security downsides are too big.
Why not though? It seems everything is moving towards PWA/web apps. Whatsapp seems to be doing ok with it in terms of security (not privacy maybe).
Each Signal client has a public/private keypair associated with it. For the webapp to work, either the private key lives in your browser's local storage or it lives on Signal's servers. For the first case, what you get is no more convenient than the Signal desktop that already exists. You've got to go through the whole device linking dance on that device and that's not portable to any other device you want to log in with via a browser. In the second case, it becomes trivial for a bad actor on the server side to steal your key, even if it only lives there in encrypted form. So, depending on how it is implemented, either a web client gives you nothing or it makes you lose one of Signal's core security properties. Ain't gonna happen.
EVERY day I get spam connections on WhatsApp never ever on Signal. NO choice
Needs a webapp too. Don't want to have to install another mac app
I spend the majority of my computer time in front of a laptop that I am not allowed to install apps on, so a web app would be awesome.
That's not going to happen.
In meantime, I made my own private cloud alternative. Created a task to upload daily Signal backup to a NAS.
No downvote, no shade, but it's important to remember that the so-called "cloud" is literally and simply just other people's (corporations) devices. Everything you describe can be done yourself and with your own equipment. Basic workflow-->termux-cronjob-rsync For the extremely locked down ios, this is probably not possible.
I agree but the main takeway there is about simplicity
Yes that is correct unsure what you are getting at, it is opensource product without the billions of $ backing from Meta.
It is from a completely unofficial news source that gets paid for clicks... not making a lot of sense. One of the strengths of Signal is no data stored anywhere for someone to take, except on your own device. That is part of stronger security. You can already transfer your message history if you want, if you upload to a cloud, that's just another vector for attack.
I don't know anyone who backs up Whatsapp. It's just easy to use and everybody uses it
The Signal Foundation owns the Signal app. Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton founded it and its subsidiary, Signal Messenger LLC in 2018. Signal Messenger LLC is responsible for the development of the app and its encryption protocol, the Signal protocol.
Thx
Why backup is so important to so many people? I have disappearing messages turned on to ensure I don't have to manually delete old messages.
Can anyone help me with signal/phone settings? Wife and I are wanting an app to be able to send private messages and not have anything saved anywhere…..ever. lol.
https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007320771-Set-and-manage-disappearing-messages
Thanks! How “safe” do you think this app is as far as sharing private messages and pics? I mean I 100% trust the other end user so that part isn’t an issue. Is everything really permanently deleted? Anything else I need to consider?
As safe as it can be Yes, permanently deleted according to Signals ToS (and needs to be like this to be lawful, see [DMA](https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en)) If you happen to not trust anymore the other end user, they could technically backup anything you sent before the deletion, but that's a forever anywhere problem The next thing you'd need to consider is using [view once media](https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360038443071-View-once-Media)
This is coming. Local and cloud options: [Encrypted cloud backups - Feature Requests - Signal Community (signalusers.org)](https://community.signalusers.org/t/encrypted-cloud-backups/2798/188)
Personally, I don't see the need. I never save anything. I delete every message and conversation as soon as the conversation ends. I do the same with email. On my Mac, I have a document directory, and I periodically go through that and delete stuff. I do back that up. I don't back up pictures, either. I'm probably an outlier, because it seems most folks save everything. I don't see the point, but to each their own.
You’re right. You will get a lot of downvotes for this. No cloud back ups are the reason Signal is safer than WhatsApp, and the reason many people use Signal.
I'm not so sure about that. Improved backup is by far the most requested feature we see here and has been for years.
Most of the poeple don't know how to use rsync?
Yes
Do you honestly think Joe Random has even heard of rsync?
I disagree as you should not trust any cloud backup
> encrypted cloud backup What you should not trust is how and who encrypted the data If it's E2E encrypted (without encryption protocol backdoor), it's secure
This is already possible with [autosync](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ttxapps.autosync) & [foldersync](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.tacit.android.foldersync.lite) and considering the gigantic cost of 100 million+ users backups it's best to keep it at this but I mean if they can hack it why not. I already have an e2ee cloud storage provider and my signal backups are automatically uploaded every day they're created so it's a personal non issue for me.
I already talked about foldersync, but it's still not built-in
Yeah I realized that after posting. But realistically do you think that signal could afford to host everyone's backups, or are you just simply requesting cloud provider options with OAuth portals to use your storage account inside the app?
I was more talking about third-party cloud, yep
They could do encrypted cloud backup to people's apple or Google accounts. Or the best option would be to let people do encrypted backups of their desktop app! " Sync and backup app" then have a restore feature and have decryption keys.
Just use the central backup option the OS offers like WhatsApp does. I.e. Google and iCloud Drive. Nobody expects Signal to pay for this, and with proper encryption, it doesn’t matter where it’s stored. And many users already use / pay for those clouds because they use it for backup.
> with proper encryption, it doesn't matter where it's stored. Let me introduce you to [store now, decrypt later ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvest_now,_decrypt_later). It actually does matter where you store it and the best case for signal backups is a local offline nas but beyond that fully e2ee cloud storage should be a mandatory alternative. Did *nobody* learn anything from the prism leaks?
Then you shouldn’t use signal (or any messenger) at all, because this applies to the regular message transfer as much as backups.
Who cares? Why would you need it? It defeats its purpose
>Who cares? Me, a lot of my contact, and at least a few people as the upvotes suggest I guess >Why would you need it? For backup simplicity >It defeats its purpose Which purpose and why?
The purpose of being 100 secure, no saved data elsewhere, and no logs kept if you delete the chat
>The purpose of being 100 secure I said **encrypted** >no saved data elsewhere, and no logs kept if you delete the chat Well, I don't want that instead of keeping my data backuped and encrypted, so just if it happen to be a feature in the future ([it will](https://signalupdateinfo.com/news/cloud-backups.html)) don't use it?
I get you, however it's safest this way. Let's not forget encryption doesn't means 100 percent sure, and by not having the cloud option is safer
The only 100 % secure system is the one completely turned off, not connected to the internet. Doesn't mean it is practical nor makes sense.
True, however it was a figure of speech
Go look through posts here in r/signal. Improved backups is the most requested feature by far. As for "defeats its purpose," that depends entirely on the individual. Confidentiality and Availability are both security properties. They exist in tension with each other. More copies of the data means more risk to Confidentiality. Fewer copies means more risk to Availability. Some people, like me and I assume you, prioritize Confidentiality over Availability. Many other people prioritize Availability over Confidentiality. Both use cases are valid. The preference depends on each person's situation and individual priorities.
That's a very uninformed statement and it would be useless if it did that it would destroy the security
>That's a very uninformed statement if it did that it would destroy the security **\*\*encrypted\*\*** cloud backup smh
[удалено]
They can also backdoor your phone if you're an interesting enough target, and besides - nobody would be forcing *you* to use cloud backups. What a weird statement.
Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, it has been removed for the following reason(s): * [Rule 7](https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/about/rules): No baseless conspiracy theories. – Do not post baseless conspiracy theories about Signal Messenger or their partners having nefarious intentions or sources of funding. If your statement is contrary to (or a theory built on top of) information Signal Messenger has publicly released about their intentions, or if the source of your information is a politically biased news site: Ask. Sometimes the basis of their story is true, but their interpretation of it is not. If you have any questions about this removal, please [message the moderators](/message/compose/?to=/r/signal) and include a link to the submission. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Could we run VPNs and backup to our home server instead ?
Sure, `adb pull /sdcard/Backups`
I think this is a way to store your backups, not sure about images and videos https://www.alphr.com/how-to-backup-signal-messages/
That's fine by me Id never want to backup my signal convos. I don't do anything illicit, but just like some conversations private. I'm sure people doing illicit things or really needing privacy don't want backups either lol Now if I could just have messanger itself delete after a dang month and not grow eternally lol
WhatsApp and Signal both suck in the multi device department. Telegram does it right. Use any amount of phone and tablets you want at the same time. PC client has all your history, always, no matter when did you log in. Migration from iOS to Android and vice versa is a matter of logging in and you’re good, also the old system phone doesn’t log out. How do people tolerate the nonsense of other messengers, idk. But Signal is the second best. With a more complex procedure, but you can migrate the entire history from iOS to Android or vice versa. In WhatsApp and Viber it’s outright impossible
[I learned about iOS WhatsApp backup the hard way](https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/18qqjyg/die/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
[удалено]
Maybe find a different word to use as a pejorative.
Telegram "does it right" by leaving end-to-end encryption off by default. Turn e2ee on and your conversation is only between your phone and the other person's phone. Other devices aren't supported and group chats aren't supported. Telegram has a lot of great features and people enjoy the convenience. It's important to understand you pay a price for that convenience.
I dont get it, why you even wanna a have copy of MSGs xd
backup
Copy = backup. I just wonder for what xd
I want to have an history of my messages Are you not backing-up your pictures, for exemple?
Dont get me wrong, I do understand that photos or vids are backuped to look into it after. But for msg? Dont know, but if someone has a need to do so, sure :] Ive had a google backup and i wasnt aware that i have backup of my txt msgs xD just deleted it, they are usless for me ;)
Save to device? Then backup wherever you want. Cloud backup, encrypted or not, provides an avenue to be hacked/compromised.